It made me smile. Molly she wasn’t tainted, like myself. It was nice to have a friend like her.
A friend...hmm…
“It’s a good thing. Messing around is fun,” I emphasized the word ‘fun.’ I was starting to realize Molly didn’t have that much fun, and I was starting to care about her. I’ve never cared before.
“It’s nothing,” she still blushed though, “really. It’s not like what you and Tray do.”
Which might not always be a good thing, but I stayed quiet.
“So, do you know any hackers?” I asked instead.
“Why?”
“It’s for a school project.” I refused to feel guilty that I was lying.
“Well,” she hesitated, “there’s a group of guys that could probably help, but—”
“But what?”
“They’re kind of…freaky.”
I can handle freaky. “Just tell me who.”
The rest of fourth period consisted of lab. Which was boring. But lunch was next and I swooped into the cafeteria, scanning for the tech crowd and spotted them in a far corner, right next to the library—go figure. Molly informed me that they ate right away and then spent the rest of lunch on the computers in the back of the library, you know—where no one went because it was nerd haven.
Molly liked going there too.
Just as I was crossing the cafeteria, I heard the door swing open and conversations halted. Literally. It was like everyone chose that moment to take a collective breath. I turned and saw the social elite—who else could garner that kind of reaction? They must’ve decided to attend the afternoon. Even the guys had decided to show up and Carter.
I looked back and saw that the techies were finishing up.
Spying an empty seat, I dropped down in the middle of them and asked bluntly, unheeding their startled expressions, “Who’s Props?”
Nothing. And because I didn’t know if they were suddenly incapable of speech or because he truly wasn’t there, I asked again, “Who is Props? My friend said I’d find him here.”
The guy next to me cleared his throat and raised his hand cautiously. “Uh…that’s me.”
He was short and husky, but if he’d clean up a bit he’d be a cutie.
Molly also informed me of this. She’d had a crush on him since seventh.
“You’re Props?”
“Uh huh.” He gulped.
I smiled and informed him, “We’re going to become friends.”
The guy looked terrified.
I waited until he finished his food and then I said, “Come with me.”
A few moments later, after I told him what I wanted, he frowned and scratched his head, then said, “So you want me to do what?”
“It’s a bank account. Okay,”.” I said, business-like, pacing behind him in some super-secret tech room. “I want you to get in there and trace all accounts that have tapped in. I need to know where those accounts ended up.”
“But, that could take days, possibly weeks, for me to even get into the account.”
“I have the account numbers,” I said quickly, dropping into the chair next to him. “So that part’s done. Now you gotta find where all other accounts go. Okay?”